1. Field
The disclosed and claimed concept relates generally to handheld electronic devices and, more particularly, to a handheld electronic device and method that enable the phonetic inputting of text in a text disambiguation environment.
2. Background Information
Numerous types of handheld electronic devices are known. Examples of such handheld electronic devices include, for instance, personal data assistants (PDAs), handheld computers, two-way pagers, cellular telephones, and the like. Many handheld electronic devices also feature wireless communication capability, although many such handheld electronic devices are stand-alone devices that are functional without communication with other devices.
In certain circumstances, a handheld electronic device having a keypad of Latin letters can be employed to phonetically enter text in languages that are not based upon Latin letters. For instance, Pinyin Chinese is a type of phonetic Chinese “alphabet” which enables transcription between Latin text and Standard Mandarin text. Pinyin Chinese can thus enable the input of Standard Mandarin characters by entering Latin letters. A “pin” is a phonetic sound, oftentimes formed from a plurality of Latin letters, and each pin is associated with one or more Standard Mandarin characters. More than four hundred pins exist, and each pin typically corresponds with a plurality of different Standard Mandarin characters.
Generally each Standard Mandarin character is itself a Chinese word. Moreover, a given Standard Mandarin character in combination with one or more other Standard Mandarin characters can constitute a different word. An exemplary pin could be phonetically characterized as “da”, which would be input on a Latin keyboard by actuating the <D> key followed by an actuation of the <A> key. However, the pin “da” corresponds with a plurality of different Standard Mandarin characters. The pin “da” can be a single-syllable word in the Chinese language that is represented by a single Standard Mandarin character. The pin “da” can also be a single syllable represented by a Standard Mandarin character within a Chinese word having a plurality of syllables, with each syllable being represented by a Standard Mandarin character. As such, substantial difficulty exits in determining which specific Standard Mandarin character should be output in response to an input of a pin when the pin corresponds with a plurality of Standard Mandarin characters.
As the Latin letters of a Pinyin input are being typed they potentially can be segmented into different pins. For instance, a string of Latin letters might correspond with a given pin, but the Latin letters might also correspond with an initial portion of a longer pin. This adds another layer of ambiguity to resolving a string of Latin letters into Standard Mandarin characters.
Numerous methodologies have been developed to assist in generating a Standard Mandarin character interpretation for a series of Latin letters that have been input on a device. For instance, an exemplary algorithm would be the “simple maximum matching” algorithm, which is one transformation algorithm among many, both simple and complex, of the well known Maximum Matching Algorithm. A given device may have stored thereon a number of Chinese words comprised of one or more Standard Mandarin characters, and the transformation algorithm(s) that are executed on the device may employ such linguistic data to develop the best possible Standard Mandarin character interpretation of a series of input Latin letters.
In response to the inputting of a sequence of Latin letters, the aforementioned simple maximum matching algorithm might generate a character interpretation comprising the largest Chinese words, i.e., the words having the greatest quantity of Standard Mandarin characters. For example, the algorithm might, as a first step, obtain the largest Chinese word having Standard Mandarin characters that correspond with the pins at the beginning of the pin sequence. As a second step, the algorithm might obtain the largest Chinese word having Standard Mandarin characters that correspond with the pins in the sequence that immediately follow the previous word. This is repeated until Chinese words have been obtained for all of the pins in the input sequence. The result is then output.
A “complex maximum matching algorithm” might perform a similar analysis but further resolve pins into strings of three Chinese words. That is, the transformation algorithm might identify the string of three Chinese words that comprise the most Standard Mandarin characters that correspond with at least a portion of a pin sequence. The transformation algorithm would then output the first of the three Chinese words as being the best interpretation of that portion of the pin sequence. The transformation algorithm would then repeat the same analysis beginning with the pins immediately after the first Chinese word.
As a general matter, the various versions of the Maximum Matching Algorithm seek in one way or another to resolve a string of Latin letters into a string of Standard Mandarin characters that make up the fewest Chinese words. While such transformation algorithms have been generally effective for their intended purpose, such transformation algorithms have not been without limitation due, for example, to the ambiguity inherent in phonetic language input. It thus would be desired to provide an improved method and handheld electronic device that facilitate the input of text.
Similar numerals refer to similar parts throughout the specification.